ISTANBUL (AP) 鈥� Turkish lawmakers passed a bill late Wednesday that includes restricting access to social media platforms for children under 15, state media reported.
The legislation is the to protect young people from dangerous online activity.
Its passage comes a week after a 14-year-old boy at a middle school in Kahramanmaras, southern Turkey, in a gun attack. Police are investigating the online activity of the perpetrator, who also died, in a bid to uncover his motivation for the attack.
The bill will force social media platforms to install age鈥憊erification systems, provide parental control tools and require companies to rapidly respond to content deemed harmful, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Turkish President must now accept the bill within 15 days for it to pass into law. He spoke in the wake of the Kahramanmaras killings of the need for to mitigate the online risks to children鈥檚 safety and privacy.
鈥淲e are living in a period where some digital sharing applications are corrupting our children’s minds and social media platforms have, to put it bluntly, become cesspools,鈥� he said in a televised address Monday.
The main opposition party 鈥� the Republican People鈥檚 Party, or CHP 鈥� has criticized the proposal, saying children should be protected 鈥渘ot with bans but with rights-based policies.鈥�
Under the law, digital platforms 鈥� such as YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and others 鈥� would have to block children under 15 from opening accounts and introduce parental controls that would manage children鈥檚 access.
Online game companies will also be required to appoint a representative in Turkey to ensure they abide by the new regulations. Potential penalties include internet bandwidth reductions and fines imposed by Turkey鈥檚 communications watchdog.
The Turkish government has a recent record of restricting online platforms as they have grown as a means of expressing dissent. Online communications were widely restricted during in support of Istanbul鈥檚 jailed opposition mayor, .
Restrictions on first began in December in Australia, where social media companies to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children.
Last month, Indonesia began implementing a new government regulation from access to digital platforms that could expose them to pornography, cyberbullying, online scams and addiction.
Some other countries 鈥� including Spain, France and the United Kingdom 鈥� are also taking or considering measures to restrict children鈥檚 access to social media amid growing concern that they are being harmed by exposure to unregulated social media content.
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